OpenGovWest Keynote | OpenGov Platform of the Future

Editor's Notes

• #3: Hi I’m Nik Garkusha
• #4: Hit me up (or flame) on Twitter @Nik_G, and I hail from Toronto, Canada, where
• #5: By Day - I run a group responsible for Open Source strategy & Open Gov initiatives at Microsoft CanadaBy Night – I run a community organization OpenHalton, helping to bring Open Data to the Halton Region, OntarioI think a lot about what the future of Open Gov looks like….…. And would like to share some thoughts & examples from Canada, specifically.PSMy perspective – priorities in life:FatherHacktivistEmployee
• #6: Like on my way back home from work, I think about how IT can enable a better open govAnd what does the change look like from a standpoint of IT infrastructure, platforms, applications…
• #7: The future is sweet – like cake.Like a multi-layer cake, any org – gov’t included – has many layers: People, Organized through Processes, Enabled through Applications, that relies on Infrastructure & platfroms.So form that perspective, for many Open Data is like Icing on the CakeFor me, the best cake is the one where the Sweetness of Open Data seeps through every layer of the organization.
• #8: Inspiration: Tony Hsieh’s org & take on role of Customer interactions Role of open Data & Open Communication in an orgAlignment of IT platforms, processes & people.Government organization can learn a lot from the private sector in the areas of focus on customer engagement, data strategies & opportunities to create --
• #9: A Connected Experience
• #11: At a first glance, zappos doesn't have a dramatically different type of an online experience: You get your jeans, for a price, $35 and a choice of sizes & colorsBut then we start paying attention to details, like the 24/7 serviceReturn & free shipping policyHelp & support options that are ever present...and then it gets interestingOptions to SHARE - can be a double-edge sword Everything is in the open, the good & the badYou get an option to like & share w/ FBExplore what others have thoughtLOVE THESE JEANS
• #12: But here's where it gets REALLY interesting This data: catalogue, search, ratings, reviews, etc. are availableAs Data that you can build upon -- as APIsAnd if you're a developer -- you can have programmatic access to the data –LOVE THESE JEANS – have a whole diff meaning nowNow I have access to zapposentire databaseAnd BUILD APPS, mash-ups, etc. on top of the Zappos Data --- Zappos is now a PLATFORM
• #13: Platform for innovation.Zappos fostering apps devInteresting mash-ups – what shoes you wear based on your political affiliationInteractive shopping appsAnd even games –
• #14: Where things don't quite compare is the next level that Zappos takes NOT only their site, platform or IT systems…. Or APIs ..it's the culture -- of course you can access that via API too. While it’s the systems that enable the APIs, it’s the processes & people that enable this to happen{SYSTEMS}
• #15: Twitter / FB interactionCREATING MORE TOUCH POINTS with CUSTOMERSMore frequent & meaningful engagement translated into positive experience & loyaltyPeople want to be heard1M+ million of opportunities to interact per day Connected EXPERIENCE{PROCESSES} 
• #16: The layers withinZappos as an org are aligned – Across technology, processes, people To support Open Communication & Open Data exchanges
• #17: Key Question: How do you implement such processes internally? How does Gov’t apply the innovation & learnings …What is the AS AN ORG need to have in place to enable this Experience)Using the Lens of ZAPPOS in our minds, Let's think no about Today's Open Gov initiatives -- How does the gov't experience compare & contrast that of Zappos?Why kind of CITIZEN EXPERIENCE is IT?
• #18: So many Open initiatives today are "point in time"say - let's have a social media "strategY" - create a twitter/fbGetting online : you're ON facebook -- not IN facebook -- part of that communityI call that the "Edge" approach -- There's no tie back in to the core of gov't processesSame with O/data - ok, let's publish to a catalogue"open mandate" - we're done; our data is now public --There's no tie back in to the core Systems where this data originatesThat's why we have budget issues with DATA.GOV in the US – and similar “edge” initiatives that are at risk of being cut b/c they aren’t perceived to be core to the gov’t business..
• #19: My take on the evolution of Open Gov initiatives/sites: from Transparency:OpenCongressopenParliamentHow’d the Vote.CA
• #20: ….to participation/engagement….Townhall-type sites: America Speaking Out initiativeCitizenFactory / Apathy Is Boring – MySociety .ORG in the UK
• #21: …To the “Collaboration” inititiatives, where citizens have a more active role as drivers (vs participants) of the initiatives.
• #22: Government-led open data initiatives are aligned with citizen- and community-driven initiativesWith “connection points” across Technology, Process & people layers ----Straight to the CORE of government business …. … with “open data” being an Integral Part of the gov’ts every With processes to support open data that span through each layer of the gov’t organizationsEnabling an ecosystem of data exchange – - gov data pushed out - community data / metadata:corrections, feedback, insights, etc. absorbed back inThis is crowdsourcing.Knowing how to COLLABORATE with citizen communityGov't being TRULY CONNECTED into the citizen Network -In Turn -- The government services, both in-person & on-line, as well as apps will REFLECT this Providing a CONNECTED CITIZEN EXPERIENCEThe good news --- elements of this already exist…
• #23: Citizen-driven initiatives in Canada
• #24: FixMyStreet was developed in 2006 and was one of the first open data applications in the UK. It enabled citizens to report problems such as potholes, broken streetlight, etc. It was built using open-source tools and combined mapping with ability to upload photos from citizens own mobile devices.
• #25: My personal favourite – It’s buggered, Mate project from down underThe challenge --- how do these citizen-driven initiatives connect to the government services?
• #26: Solutions like See-click-fix that are looking to solve that – bridging citizen- and gov’t-led services
• #27: And governments themselves like SF, Miami with their 311 services as exampleAllow you to visualize & submit service requests via web & mobileheyGov platform by ISC
• #28: And open standards – like Open 311 – are helping create those “connection points” between the citizen initiatives --- and GOV’t Services ---
• #29: Helping get rid of the silos, and helping build the Open Government Platform of the future.Challenge:: Gov't still doing Open Gov and Open Data in silosThese initiatives are at the edge -- first to go (Data.gov)Gov't has to change - at its coreOpen data needs to be at its core Platforms & technology that support gov't today -- need to have open data at their CORE
• #30: The 4 attributes of the “Open Gov Platform” of the future.
• #31: Open as a pillar of government business, at the core of government’s operations…This can be accomplished via…(extra notes)Any time data is created, it acquires attributes - that describe whether this data is "OPEN" or "internal use only“Internal Systems / applications & external applications pick up the right “feeds” and expose those to groups that have the right level of accessi.e. External Read-only Access to Open Data catalogue
• #32: Top- Down, likeAndrea Reimer -- councilor in Vancouver, who championed the Open 3 motion: Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source
• #33: Or via an Internal Champion – bottom- up approach -- like CIO of Edmonton Chris More (Open City Workshop)City of Edmonton's CIO Chris Moore speaking with some workshop participants prior to the start of the Open City Workshop.
• #34: Who championed dev’t of an Open Data portal & catalogue, put up in a matter of weeksWith not only Data Access, but Developer-ready access with APIs, enabling apps…
• #35: Like Find-a-Home (Timothy Dalby) – now a commercially viable solution based on open data
• #36: Efficiencies for EXTERNAL requests (50% less requests as reported by Dave Wallace, CIO of Toronto)
• #37: Transforming – creating connections, from silos
• #38: To start off, it’s changing the relationship between the gov’t and the citizensJanise LaCouvee (Vancouver Island)Evolution of gov't - to address citizens need to BELONG Maslow's hierarchyBefore:Institutions met basic needs of citizens. - education, police, fire, military, public transport, social services, town planning, water services, waste mgmt -- roman+aquaductsNow: Called to meet “belonging” needs.The requires that Gov't is not only talking TO citizen communities, or Online communities or Open Gov communities, or Open Data hacker communities ---It needs to evolveto become PART of these communities
• #39: Organic crowdsourcingExtends to gov20City of nanaimo, opendatabc, nanaimo IT workers - part of Relying on citizen communities requires knowing how to:Empowering the culture of these communities (foster communities)Hosting hackathons, F&B and venue --Socially – specific thingsSense – making
• #40: Organic crowdsourcingExtends to gov20City of niagara falls, ONCity of Nanaimo – parks N rec (@NinjaMeg) example of crowdsourcing image / voting for an activity guide
• #41: Like WhereDidItGo project by OpenDataBC that helps to visualize how BC’s taxes are being spent, orDisclosed.CA that helps search through past contracts across various Agencies, and track how they spend taxpayers’ dollars
• #42: Or visualizeCrime in San Farncisco as Streetlights Doug McCune - AWESOME 3D projections of crime data:Prostitution NarcoticsVandalism –Or the way I like to call it:Sex, Drugs and RockNRoll data in 3DDoug McCune / http://dougmccune.com/blog
• #43: I was part of the cross-Canada team of open data hackers that pulled together EMITTERA way to visualize industrial polluters & using Environment Canada data via Windows Azure APIs to pull information about MPs for that area
• #44: Fostering use & applications on top of the platformsTapping into App EcosystemFostering citizen Ready appsFostering Connected experience for citizensBe the foundation -- App store / marketplaceOther services that can use Gov't data: standards, APIs allow this to be seamless
• #45: Effective Recapture Mechanismspowered by Communities / Social componentThere is a wealth of knowledge - need to know how to harness it
• #46: www.flickr.com/photos/paperandglue/3437753623/
• #47: Video – Manitoba Floods / Ushahidi platform
• #48: Workflows to review/refine & integrateMerge / Synthesize / integrate the newfound knowledge  Merge / synthesize the "knowledge of the masses"workflows to review, validate approve data & make use of meta-data Or better yetCrowdsource the review - community review:community moderationauthority pays attention to community feedback & incorporates findingsSelf-selected group of moderators ORCity-selected community of members….
• #49: Social media - citizen-driven GIS data (resource for rich linked data)OpenStreetMap - Platform for crowdSourcing & connecting data back to the source (?)Location-based Collaboration (citizen) GeoWIkis --- represented by WIKI MAPIA Collaborative GIS systems (authority) Crowdsourcing & CollaborationProcesses to RATE
• #50: Relying on self-selected communities of InfomediariesRufus Pollock, co-Founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation. In an ecosystem there are data cycles: infomediaries — intermediate consumers of data such as builders of apps and data wranglers — should also be publishers who share back their cleaned / integrated / packaged data into the ecosystem in a reusable way — these cleaned and integrated datasets being, of course, often more valuable than the original source.WIKI - government: data- and meta-data merge frameworks; collaborative democracy participatory nature of Web 2.0 technologies to build a new kind of participatory democracy and a smart, lean government.Patent examiners have traditionally worked in secret, cut off from essential information and racing against the clock to rule on lengthy, technical claims. Peer-to-Patent broke this mold by creating online networks of self-selecting citizen experts and channeling their knowledge and enthusiasm into forms that patent examiners can easily use.
• #51: This is a different model of model of citizen-centric government-to-citizen engagement, pivoted differently:B2B, B2C, G2C --- OG2C
• #52: Transforming data publishing
• #53: Evolution from DATA
• #54: To Data + Maps
• #55: Cloud – lower barriers to deploy open gov / open data solutions, efficiency, scale.The Cloud lends itself as a great hosting platform for open data, open standards, and development of open APIs (and therefore shared applications).
• #56: Leverage APIs to the data & back to providers: PDX API started by Max Ogden , using GeoCouch (spatial index enabled flavour of CouchDB), more generalized version CivicAPIOGDI / oData APIsSocrataESRI OpenDataPhilly: ESRI , PHL API, etc.
• #57: APIs have the potential to enable the 2-way data exchange
• #58: Ways to capture the Meta-data – and associate it back with the original dataAnd, depending on the type of APIs – even describe the relationships between the data sets –
• #59: And links –Now if I'm talking about Data that has meaning and Relationships that are described w/in data -- I'm talking about Semantic Web -- throughout the org & also outside the orgIt will help to break through the Barrier between data inside & outside the orgLinked Data / RDFHTML MicroDataoDataGdAtaoDAta projectOpen Standards – enable a better ecosystem for navigating networks of data
• #60: Read/Write Web – integrated collaborative map experience
• #62: So thanks Tony & Zappos, and all those projects & examples I mentionedAs you are truly the…
• #63: …the building blocksOf the Open Gov Platform of the future
• #64: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannychoo/2691629463http://www.flickr.com/photos/paperandglue/3437753623http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunolm13/2674393059/sizes/l/http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunolm13/2674393059/sizes/l/http://www.flickr.com/photos/hillsdalehouse/16268807/http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3525013547/http://www.flickr.com/photos/okfn/5684212276/http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/5439664787/http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofedmonton/4416846907/http://www.flickr.com/photos/chichacha/2473930145http://www.flickr.com/photos/28722563@N05/4342036827/http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos/115247549/http://www.flickr.com/photos/civisi/2611679744http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteashton/2336957200/